Post subject: Best out of the box card with lowest idle noise for gaming

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:03 pm

Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 3:39 pmPosts: 21Location: Spain, Europe

As the title says, it's pretty simple: Whats the best card out there that will not require removing parts and buying 3rd party ones, that will have the best idle levels out there while performing as best as possible in games?

From the research I've done it seem like the 7850 by MSI is the best candidate out there:

The reason I need super quiet idle and I don't care that much about load is because when im on idle it means im surfing the web chilling, so I like to relax and any noise disturbs me. I also work with audio (write electronic music) so I need as much silence as possible because I go surgical on there with sound.

Im also a gamer, so I like to play games at decent frame rates and decent graphical settings, which means im willing to compromise load noise if I get better performance. Also when im playing I usually blast speakers/headphones loud enough that combined with the actual gameplay I don't care about background noise that much.If im watching an HD movie with Splash EX Pro where it uses GPU for maximun video fidelity and I get annoyed I would try to play around with riva tunner and limit the fan noise + crank louder speakers/cans and deal with it.

There is no price limit.

My MB is a bit old: Gigabyte x38 DQ6. It has PCI Express x16 support.There shouldn't be any incompatibilities afaik, but I mention it just in case.

PSU is a Enermax Infinity 720W which is pretty solid.

CPU is your regular Q6600

Everything has been and will be running at default speeds so no OC's of any kind.

Im replacing my old 3870x2 which im pretty sure died today. I get 2 red static leds on it and a black screen when I boot. Looks like a dead card to me. Repeated crashes while gaming/video make me think this. I will bring it to a shop for testing but im ready for the bad news. It's time to upgrade anyway. This thing was a monster back in the day (first GPU to hit 1GB) but now it's pretty old and noisy. 7850 should be a mega upgrade and the first upgrade for my dream totally silent-focused rig in the future.

Post subject: Re: Best out of the box card with lowest idle noise for gami

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 6:06 am

Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:20 amPosts: 150Location: Sweden

silenceorgtfo wrote:

As the title says, it's pretty simple: Whats the best card out there that will not require removing parts and buying 3rd party ones, that will have the best idle levels out there while performing as best as possible in games?

From the research I've done it seem like the 7850 by MSI is the best candidate out there:

The reason I need super quiet idle and I don't care that much about load is because when im on idle it means im surfing the web chilling, so I like to relax and any noise disturbs me. I also work with audio (write electronic music) so I need as much silence as possible because I go surgical on there with sound.

Im also a gamer, so I like to play games at decent frame rates and decent graphical settings, which means im willing to compromise load noise if I get better performance. Also when im playing I usually blast speakers/headphones loud enough that combined with the actual gameplay I don't care about background noise that much.If im watching an HD movie with Splash EX Pro where it uses GPU for maximun video fidelity and I get annoyed I would try to play around with riva tunner and limit the fan noise + crank louder speakers/cans and deal with it.

There is no price limit.

My MB is a bit old: Gigabyte x38 DQ6. It has PCI Express x16 support.There shouldn't be any incompatibilities afaik, but I mention it just in case.

PSU is a Enermax Infinity 720W which is pretty solid.

CPU is your regular Q6600

Everything has been and will be running at default speeds so no OC's of any kind.

Im replacing my old 3870x2 which im pretty sure died today. I get 2 red static leds on it and a black screen when I boot. Looks like a dead card to me. Repeated crashes while gaming/video make me think this. I will bring it to a shop for testing but im ready for the bad news. It's time to upgrade anyway. This thing was a monster back in the day (first GPU to hit 1GB) but now it's pretty old and noisy. 7850 should be a mega upgrade and the first upgrade for my dream totally silent-focused rig in the future.

Cheers

I bought and installed the Asus GTX 660Ti yesterday and it is inaudible in my system. It is also a equivavalent to a HD7950-7970 in performance but equivavalent to a HD7850-7870 in temps. Also i noticed that the card seem to be able to go down to 10% on the fans, i doubt its accurate thou considering the starting voltage would then have to be incredible. It is without a doubt SPCR level quiet.

Post subject: Re: Best out of the box card with lowest idle noise for gami

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:41 am

Moderator

Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 amPosts: 6681Location: Monterey Bay, CA

I like the MSI TwinFrozr IV design. So, the 7850 you linked is a good choice at ~$200. MSI's GTX 660 Ti at ~$300 is also good. I wouldn't bother with anything higher performance than the GTX 660Ti as you'd probably be CPU limited.

Post subject: Re: Best out of the box card with lowest idle noise for gami

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 3:02 am

Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 3:39 pmPosts: 21Location: Spain, Europe

I finally went for the R7850 PE. I think higher performance than this would be overkill and bootlenecked on my current system, and I don't plan to upgrade the rest of my computer anytime soon so it's pointless. Will report back with noise perception. Probably the only thing I can hear at least in idle will be the rest of the components, like the 5 fans I have, the big asus CPU fan or the PSU fan (is the Enermax Infinity 720W decent with noise levels? i can't find any review on this).

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